


an idiot's guide to love

by rhizome_999



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - Fandom
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Post-Game(s), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7112701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhizome_999/pseuds/rhizome_999
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junpei and Akane have a talk. Or, more accurately, Akane talks. Junpei tries not to listen.</p><p>Written pre-ZTD release. A possible lead into VLR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an idiot's guide to love

**How to fall out of love, a simple guide by Junpei Tenmyouji:**

“How long does a dream last?” asks Akane, She isn’t looking at him, isn’t even turned to face him, just staring placidly into the middle distance. There’s nothing but steel doors in that direction, so it’s either an attempt at appearing perfectly calm and in control, or just to avoid eye contact. Knowing Akane (which, Junpei can’t say he does while being perfectly honest) it’s probably both.

“You can never just come out and say things, can you.” Junpei sighs heavily. “No, I don’t. Now what’s your point?”

“Over the course of an average human lifespan, we spend about six years dreaming. That’s about two hours each night.” Akane pulls at her sleeve. Makes her seem nervous, makes her seem scared and fragile and young. Junpei knows better.

“But that can’t be right, can it?” she continues. “Have you ever dreamed yourself a whole life, decades for yourself in a world of your own creation? How could that fit into a mere two hours? Or, even less, really. Most dreams only last up to 20 minutes at a time. You have a lot of them, but most dreams you forget immediately. But the ones you do remember, they can be lifetime, in less than half an hour. Can you imagine?”

Despite himself, he’s listening to her. God, and hasn’t that always been his problem when it comes to Akane? That when it comes to her, everything he does is ‘despite himself’.

“I suppose you do. It’s your dream, after all. So, again, the question is, how long does a dream last? You could say a dream lasts 20 minutes. Or you could say a dream lasts a lifetime. But does it really matter for the ones you forget?”

“And your point?”

“You could dream a whole life and forget it all,” Akane says. Now she chooses to look at him, eyes like polished amethyst reflecting off itself. “Who’s to say we won’t wake up lying on a hillside on a late June afternoon? Two children in the tall grass just after the end of school… What do you think? Wouldn’t that be nice, Jumpy?”

Oh, now that’s just not fair.

“Hate to break it to you, but this isn’t some dream,” he says. It’s easier to distract himself with sarcasm because traversing the tenuous path of 'what if’ with Akane Kurashiki is never a good idea. It’s tempting, of course. It would be nice if everything was just a dream.

But Junpei gets flashes, sometimes, of things he’s not supposed to remember. And they haunt _his_ dreams: blood-soaked Clover waving behind her as blood drips drips drips, an array of corpses around the staircase, Ace and Snake and the smell of char…

“You’re right,” Akane says, drawing him out of his thoughts. “It’s not a dream. But what if it could be?”

She pulls her sleeve back and allows whatever she was hiding beneath it to slip out into her hand. Heh. Figures. Good to know that detective training helped.

“The bracelets make us forget 90 minutes. A bit of a stronger dose, and the effects are more pronounced,” she says, the cloudy white liquid in the two syringes seeming to take on a pearlescent shine when she shifts her hand under the light. She must have palmed them from Carlos, after they’d passed through the lab. “With how much there is in one of these syringes, I’d guess we’d both forget about a week. We wake up, and to us none of this ever happened. Just a dream.”

She steps forward, the syringes rolling gently in her palm. “Jumpy?”

* * *

**How to stay in love, an even simpler guide:**

Step 1: Clench your fist tight, watching the blue-green vein pop just under the skin of your wrist.  

Step 2: Touch the needle to your skin. Press slightly.

Step 3: Vaguely remember Clover’s voice, and the dim impression of watching your breath bubble out of your lungs into still, murky waters…

Step 4: Forget.


End file.
